Prince Lestat

by Anne Rice

  But now a new vision had taken hold of him, a new witness to something he could no longer deny. His mind was no longer stubborn and locked against its vagrant possibilities and wild, escalating light.

  What if the old sensibilities that had forged him had not been the sacrosanct revelation that he had once assumed? What if it were possible to invest every cell of his being with a gratitude and acceptance of self that could bring not mere contentment but certain joy?

  It seemed impossible.

  Yet undeniably, he felt it happening. He felt some overall quickening that was so surprisingly new for him that no one save himself could or would understand. But no other understanding was needed. He knew this.

  For what he'd been, the being he'd been, required no confessions to those he knew and loved, but only that he love them and affirm their purpose with his transformed soul. And if he had once been the soul of an age as Armand had long ago told him he was, well, so be it, because he saw that dark and lustrous age with its decayed beliefs and doomed rebellions as only a beginning--a vast and fertile kindergarten in which the terms of his struggle had not been without value but were now most certainly the phantoms of a past from which he had, in spite of himself, exorably emerged.

  He had not perished. That might be his only significant accomplishment. He had survived. Yes, he'd been defeated, more than once. But fortune had refused to release him. And he was here now, whole, and quietly accepting of the fact though he honestly did not know why.

  But what loomed ahead of him now were challenges more wondrous and splendid than he'd ever foreseen. And he wanted this, this future, this time in which "Hell would have no dominion" and in which the Devil's Road had become the Road of the People of Darkness, who were essentially children no more.

  This was beyond happiness and beyond contentment. This was nothing other than peace.

  From the depths of the townhouse came the music of Antoine and Sybelle with a new melody, a furious Tchaikovsky waltz, ah, the waltz of "The Sleeping Beauty," and on and on the music surged in Antoine's magnificent glissandos, and Sybelle's pounding chords.

  Oh, how differently he heard this triumphal music now than he had once heard it, and how he opened himself to it, acknowledging its magnificent claims.

  He closed his eyes. Was he making lyrics for this swirling melody, was he forming some affirmation for his soul? "Yes, and I do want this, yes, I do take it, yes, I hold it in my heart, the will to know this beauty forever, the will to let it be the light on my path...."

  On they went, faster and faster, the piano and the violin singing of gaiety and glory as if they had always been one.

  A random noise pierced his thoughts. Something wrong. Be en garde. The music had stopped.

  Over the top of the brick wall to his left, he saw a human crouched in the darkness, incapable of seeing him there as he saw the human. He heard the soft stealthy sounds of Sybelle and Antoine drawing near to the glass porch that ran along the back of the three townhouses. He heard the mortal intruder's labored breath.

  The intruder, dressed in black garments and black skull cap, dropped down into the wet grass. With deft feline movements he darted out from the shrubbery and into the dim yellow light from the house.

  Scent of fear, scent of rage, scent of blood.

  He saw Louis now, the lone figure on the bench beneath the tree, and he stiffened. Out of his slick black Windbreaker jacket he raised a knife that shone like silver in the semidarkness.

  Slowly he came towards Louis. Ah, the old menacing dance.

  Louis closed the book but he didn't put it aside. The scent of the blood made him faintly delirious. He watched this emaciated yet powerful young man come closer. He saw the malignant face infinitely more clearly than the man, hardened with purpose, could see his. The man was sweating and breathing raggedly, crazed with drugs and seeking for anything he might snatch to find the anodyne for his twisting gut. Such beautiful eyes. Such black eyes. Why these walls and not some other garden meant nothing in the scheme of things to this one, and before Louis could utter a word to him, the man had resolved to sink the knife into Louis's heart.

  "Death," Louis said now loudly enough to stop the man, though he was only a few feet away. "Are you ready for this? Is this what you truly want?"

  A sinister laugh came from the intruder. He stepped forward crunching the lilies, the stout white calla lilies, underfoot.

  "Yeah, death, my friend!" the man said. "You're in the wrong place at the wrong time."

  "Ah, but for your sake"--Louis sighed--"would that were true. But it has never been less true than it is now."

  He had the man in his grip.

  The knife was gone, lost in the wet leaves. Sybelle and Antoine waited in the shadows behind the wall of glass.

  The man fought and kicked in a small useless fury. Oh, how Louis had always cherished the struggle, young muscles straining against him and the inevitable strangled curses like so much unwitting applause.

  He drove his fangs right into the arterial stream. How ever translate for a mortal world the heat and purity of this simple feast? Salt and blood, and dark shiny brittle fantasies of victories, all flowing into him and out of the victim with the last protest of his dying heart.

  It was finished. The man lay dead among the lilies. Louis stood wondrously satisfied and reanimated, the night opening up above him through luminous clouds. And the music inside the house began again.

  Flushed with blood, flushed with the old deceptive but seductive sense of illimitable power, he thought of Lestat across the sea. What charms would his great castle hold, and what manner of court would convene there in chambers of stone that Louis so longed to see? He had to smile when he thought of the easy swagger with which Lestat had fulfilled the tribe's collective dreams.

  The road ahead could not be smooth, and simplicity could never be the goal. The burden of conscience was part of Louis's human heart and the heart of every blood drinker he had ever known, even Armand. And the struggle for goodness, actual goodness, would and must obsess them all. That was the miracle which now united the tribe.

  How wondrous it seemed suddenly that such a struggle could now lay waste with such undeniable power the old dead dualities which had enslaved him for so long.

  But he looked down at the man who lay dead at his feet, and a terrible sorrow took hold of him.

  Death is the mother of beauty.

  It was a line from a poem by Wallace Stevens, and it came to him now with a painful irony. Beauty for me perhaps but not beauty for this one whom I have destroyed.

  He knew terror for a moment, terror that might never really leave him no matter how much he came to understand, or to learn. Terror. Terror that this tender young mortal might have lost his soul to utter meaninglessness and annihilation, and that all of them, his blood drinker brothers and sisters, no matter how powerful, how old, how grand, might someday fall victim to the same brutal end.

  After all, what ghost or spirit, no matter how eloquent or skilled, could claim that anything of sentience lay beyond the thick mysterious air surrounding this planet? Again he thought of Stevens's poem.

  Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be

  The blood of paradise? And shall the earth

  Seem all of paradise that we shall know?

  His heart was breaking for the young man who lay there dead, eyes closed in the final sleep. The remains were already slowly perishing in the warm rain. His heart broke for all the victims everywhere of blood lust, and war, and accident, and old age, and illness, and unendurable pain.

  But his heart broke a little for once for himself too.

  And that perhaps was the real change in him, the change that he welcomed--that he could see himself as part now of all this great and glistening world. He was not part of some mindless force that sought to destroy it. No, he was part of it. He was part of this, this night with its sweet mild rain, and this whispering garden with its fragrant flowers and its trees, and the breezes that mov
ed their branches. And he was part of the roar of the city rising around him, and part of the sharp shining music that came from within the house. He was part of the grass beneath his feet, and the tiny relentless hordes of winged things that sought to devour the human waiting there helplessly for a proper grave.

  He thought of Lestat again, confident, smiling, wearing the mantle of power as easily as he had always worn his finery, old and new.

  He said under his breath:

  "Beloved maker, beloved Prince, I will be with you soon."

  Tuesday

  November 26, 2013

  Palm Desert

  Appendix 1

  Characters and Their Chronology

  Amel--A spirit manifesting to humans six thousand years ago or in 4000 B.C.

  Akasha--The first vampire, made by a fusion with the spirit Amel six thousand years ago, or in 4000 B.C. Thereafter known as the Mother, or the Sacred Fount, or the Queen.

  Enkil--The husband of Akasha and the first vampire made almost immediately by her.

  Khayman--The second vampire made by Akasha within the first years after the fusion.

  Maharet and Mekare--Twin witches born six thousand years ago. Mekare was made a vampire by Khayman. Maharet was made by Mekare. Khayman, Maharet, and Mekare became the First Brood rebelling against Akasha and making other blood drinkers when and where they chose.

  Nebamun, later Gregory Duff Collingsworth--Made by Akasha in the first few years to lead her Queens Blood troops against the First Brood.

  Seth--The human son of Akasha, brought into the Blood perhaps fifteen to twenty years after the fusion.

  Sevraine--A Nordic woman brought into the Blood illegally by Nebamun (Gregory) about five thousand years ago, or one thousand years after the Blood Genesis. The maker of several vampires yet unnamed.

  Rhoshamandes--A male from Crete, brought into the Blood at the same time as Sevraine, to serve in the Queens Blood. Made directly by Akasha.

  Avicus, Cyril, Teskhamen--Egyptian blood drinkers made by the priests of Akasha's cult well before the Common Era, drinking the Mother's blood but not made by her.

  Marius--A Roman patrician, kidnapped by the Druids, and brought into the Blood shortly after the birth of Christ, or at the dawn of the Common Era. Made by Teskhamen, who was shortly thereafter presumed dead.

  Pandora--A Roman patrician woman named Lydia, brought into the Blood by Marius in the first century.

  Flavius--A Greek slave brought into the Blood by Pandora during the first century.

  Mael--A Druid priest, the kidnapper of Marius, brought into the Blood by Avicus, and presumed dead.

  Hesketh--A Germanic cunning woman, brought into the Blood by Teskhamen in the first century. Murdered in the eighth century.

  Chrysanthe--A merchant's wife from the Christian city of Hira. Brought into the Blood by Nebamun, newly risen and named Gregory, in the fourth century.

  Zenobia--A Byzantine woman, brought into the Blood by Eudoxia (now dead), who was made by Cyril around the sixth or seventh century.

  Allesandra--A Merovingian princess, daughter of King Dagobert I, brought into the Blood in the seventh century by Rhoshamandes.

  Gremt Stryker Knollys--A spirit who enters the narrative in the eighth century (748).

  Benedict--A Christian monk of the eighth century, brought into the Blood by Rhoshamandes around the year A.D. 800.

  Thorne--A Viking, brought into the Blood by Maharet around the ninth century of the Common Era.

  Notker the Wise--A monk and a musician and a composer brought into the Blood by Benedict around A.D. 880, maker of many musician vampires as yet unnamed.

  Eleni and Eugenie de Landen--Fledglings of Rhoshamandes made in the early Middle Ages.

  Everard de Landen--A fledgling of Rhoshamandes made in the Middle Ages.

  Arjun--A prince of the Chola dynasty in India, brought into the Blood by Pandora around 1300.

  Santino--Italian vampire made during the time of the Black Death. Longtime Roman coven master of the Children of Satan. Presumed dead.

  Magnus--An elderly alchemist who stole the Blood from Benedict during the 1400s. The maker of Lestat in 1780.

  Armand--A Russian icon painter kidnapped in the vicinity of Kiev and brought to Venice as a slave, and made into a vampire by Marius around 1498.

  Bianca Solderini--A Venetian courtesan made in the Blood by Marius around 1498.

  Raymond Gallant--A faithful mortal scholar of the Talamasca, presumed dead in the sixteenth century.

  Lestat de Lioncourt--Seventh son of a French marquis, made a vampire in the year 1780 by Magnus. Author of the second book in the Vampire Chronicles, The Vampire Lestat.

  Gabrielle de Lioncourt--Lestat's mother, made by him in the Blood in 1780.

  Nicolas de Lenfent--Close friend of Lestat, made into a vampire by Lestat in 1780 and long dead.

  Louis de Pointe du Lac--A Louisiana French colonial plantation owner, brought into the Blood by Lestat in 1791. Louis began the books known as the Vampire Chronicles with Interview with the Vampire in 1976.

  Claudia--An orphan, brought into the Blood around 1794. Long dead.

  Antoine--A French musician, exiled to Louisiana and brought into the Blood by Lestat around 1860.

  Daniel Malloy--An American male of about twenty who enters the narrative when he "interviews" Louis de Pointe du Lac about his life as a vampire, resulting in the publication of Interview with the Vampire in 1976. He is brought into the Blood by Armand in 1985, some nine years later.

  Jesse Reeves--Mortal descendant of Maharet, brought into the Blood by Maharet in 1985.

  David Talbot--Superior General of the Talamasca, brought into the Blood in 1992 by Lestat. David, the victim of a body switch, lost his original biological body, that of an elderly man, before being made into a vampire in the body of a much younger man.

  Killer--An American male vampire of unknown origin, founder of the Fang Gang, who entered the narrative about 1985.

  Davis--A black dancer from New York, a member of the Fang Gang, brought into the Blood by Killer sometime before 1985.

  Fareed Bhansali--A brilliant Anglo-Indian doctor and surgeon, brought into the Blood by Seth around 1986 in Mumbai.

  Benjamin (Benji) Mahmoud--A twelve-year-old Palestinian Bedouin boy, brought into the Blood by Marius in 1997.

  Sybelle--A young American pianist, about twenty, brought into the Blood by Marius in 1997.

  Rose--An American girl of around twenty rescued as a small child by Lestat from an earthquake in the Mediterranean around 1995. His ward.

  Dr. Flannery Gilman--An American doctor and discredited vampire researcher, brought into the Blood by Fareed in the early twenty-first century.

  Viktor--A human experiment conducted under the auspices of Fareed Bhansali and his maker, Seth, along with Dr. Flannery Gilman before her induction into the Blood.

  Assorted unnamed fledglings, ghosts, and spirits.

  Appendix 2

  An Informal Guide to the Vampire Chronicles

  1. Interview with the Vampire (1976)--In this, the first published memoir of a vampire within his tribe, Louis de Pointe du Lac tells his life story to a reporter he encounters in San Francisco--Daniel Malloy. Born in the eighteenth century in Louisiana, Louis, a rich plantation owner, encounters the mysterious Lestat de Lioncourt, who offers him immortality through the Blood and Louis accepts--beginning a long spiritual search for the meaning of who and what he has become. The child vampire Claudia and the mysterious Armand of the Theatre des Vampires are central to the story.

  2. The Vampire Lestat (1985)--Here, Lestat de Lioncourt offers his full autobiography--recounting his life in eighteenth-century France as a penniless provincial aristocrat, a Parisian stage actor, and finally as a vampire in conflict with other members of the Undead, including the coven of the Children of Satan. After a long physical and spiritual journey, Lestat reveals ancient secrets about the vampire tribe that he has kept for more than a century, emerging as a rock star and
rock video maker, eager to start a war with humankind that might bring the Undead together and end in vampiric annihilation.

  3. The Queen of the Damned (1988)--Though written by Lestat, this story includes multiple points of view from mortals and immortals all over the planet, responding to Lestat's revealing rock music and videos, which awaken the six-thousand-year-old Queen of the Vampires, Akasha, from her long slumber. The first book to deal with the entire tribe of the Undead around the world. This novel contains the first inclusion of the mysterious secret order of mortal scholars known as the Talamasca, who study the paranormal.

  4. The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)--Lestat's memoir in which he recounts his disastrous encounter with a clever and sinister mortal named Raglan James, a sorcerer experienced in switching bodies--a battle which forces Lestat into closer involvement with his friend, David Talbot, Superior General of the Talamasca, whose scholarly members are dedicated to the study of the paranormal.

  5. Memnoch the Devil (1995)--Lestat narrates a personal adventure, this time filled with devastating shocks and mysteries as he confronts a powerful spirit, Memnoch, claiming to be none other than the Devil of Christian lore, the fallen angel himself, who invites Lestat to journey with him to Heaven and Hell, and seeks to enlist Lestat as a helper in the Christian realm.

  6. Pandora (1998)--Published under the series title "New Tales of the Vampires," this story is Pandora's autobiographical confession, recounting her life in the ancient Roman Empire during the time of Augustus and Tiberius, including her great and tragic love affair with the vampire Marius. Though it does recount later events, the book is principally focused on Pandora's first century as a vampire.

  7. The Vampire Armand (1998)--Here, Armand, a profound and enigmatic presence in earlier novels, offers his autobiography to the reader, explaining his long life since the time of the Renaissance when he was kidnapped from Kiev and brought to Venice as a boy brothel slave, only to be rescued by the powerful and ancient vampire Marius. Yet another kidnapping puts Armand in the hands of the cruel and notorious Children of Satan, superstitious vampires who worship the Devil. Though Armand concludes his story in the present time and introduces new characters to the Chronicles, most of the account focuses on his earlier years.